Thinking faster than I speak
This is something that is peculiar to me but I'm pretty sure that this is the same for most of you.
I have a tendency to think a lot and I do think during my waking hours every day. However, when I speak to someone face to face especially if it is something important I tend to stutter or get confused in the choice of words.
Needless to say that is a frustating experience and even though when I was young it was true that I couldn't speak until I was 4 years old and had to undergo speech therapy and since my speaking ability has then improved as I got older, from time to time that happens to me and the reason being is that in my case as was noted by my dad that I do think fast than I speak and my thinking can be so fast as to not catch up with the part of my brain that process speech. This may be a hypothesis but a pretty reasonable one.
Thinking too fast as an explanation for a speech problem is an example of cognitive dissonance. I've heard people try to use this as an excuse for bad hand writing too. I have both problems and the speech problem has gotten better with time but absent mindedness is really what causes it. The bad handwriting is because I didn't practice it enough when I was learning to write. Everyone should be extremely skeptical of flattering excuses for being sh***y at something.
I tend to block a little when nervous, sometimes stutter slightly, and I have the subjective feeling, that I think faster, than I can speak, but that is only an idea.
I think, in my case, it started by learning to look smart and speed-think and speed-talk to avoid sounding weird. I remember, that initially I was having a hard time pronouncing language as fast as other people, and it felt very stupid. I was laughed at now and then.
Speculation: Perhaps my over-correct speech as a young child was a sort of compensation for some physical difficulty, that were never discovered? Or it may have ben insecurity.
The only "delay"I had was difficulty distinguishing J from L until 4-5 years.
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Femaline
Special Interest: Beethoven
Last edited by Jensen on 03 Aug 2013, 8:48 pm, edited 7 times in total.
I get so frustrated when speaking with groups that when I finally do get a chance to squeeze in and say something I start saying everything at once. I wap swords and lablesyls... I swap words and syllables. I sound like I am speaking in tongues at times. And this all happens while it seems my brain is juggling the words faster than I can speak them.
From what my mother tells me, I talked at the normal age but did not start speaking until I was 3 or 4.
This is true, as I often have huge explanations to drop on people, and it's usually when I'm under pressure, that I have a lump of information all jammed up in my mouth and I don't know yet how to organize it into information processable to others. Hence, I literally try to say everything at once. I spend a ton of time thinking up huge processes or ideas, and when I want to tell people, the only time I can explain effectively is when I'm talking to someone who doesn't care, or when I have time to organize it in my head. Basically when i'm under minimal pressure. It's really a matter of creating heaps of information, only organizing it enough that you understand it, and when it comes down to explaining, you have to re organize it on the spot, Sometimes when I wanna say something I start with just a random element, build onto the idea from other information, until I've literally explained an unorganized heap to someone. I'll then ask them if they were able to connect the dots, sometimes they say yes, which is nice, but usually they say no, and I go ahead and connect the dots there. It's not that you aren't thinking. I always have a hard time finding words to say, and it's because I have a complicated concept I want to present to someone, and I'm jumping through my head trying to find a word that describes it, because I don't think in words. I think in abstract images that can be made out into literally any idea. So the problem is turning the images into words. We don't speak images.
Often they're not trying to use it as an excuse because they don't even know it's an excuse. When it's happening it can really seem like the reason is thinking too fast even if it's not. If you believe that you're thinking too fast you're not making excuses. You just don't understand what's going on.
It's like that episode of south park where Cartman tries to take credit for coming up with a popular joke when he was barely involved in it. He ends up truly believing that he came up with the joke.
I have a tendency to think a lot and I do think during my waking hours every day. However, when I speak to someone face to face especially if it is something important I tend to stutter or get confused in the choice of words.
Needless to say that is a frustating experience and even though when I was young it was true that I couldn't speak until I was 4 years old and had to undergo speech therapy and since my speaking ability has then improved as I got older, from time to time that happens to me and the reason being is that in my case as was noted by my dad that I do think fast than I speak and my thinking can be so fast as to not catch up with the part of my brain that process speech. This may be a hypothesis but a pretty reasonable one.
I know exactly what you mean, I suffor from the exact thing you described. You're correct, the brain works faster than the rest can interpret and this causes problems with being able to communicate through speech. I bet it's far easier for you to communicate through text isn't it? Me too. Most people think it's something that it isn't, sadly.
In my case, my brain analyzes at least 500 things at any given time, it makes it very hard to articulate anything verbally. Some days are worse than others. It's very hard to focus on anything in real time as well. Although I must say, sometimes it comes in handy when going over my temporal/quantum displacement theories.
I guess you could call it: "Thought Oriented"
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Writer. Author.
It's like that episode of south park where Cartman tries to take credit for coming up with a popular joke when he was barely involved in it. He ends up truly believing that he came up with the joke.
Except that the Cartman example is a lot more specific because it's already assumed that he was lying and aware of it at one point.
Sometimes when I'm trying to describe something, I think of a better description mid-sentence, and change what I'm saying. I expect people to understand how the first thing I say, relates to the second. I often confuse people who can't keep up with my non-linear conversation style. Maybe this is a result of cognitive dissonance.
Raz0rscythe
Tufted Titmouse
Joined: 26 Jan 2013
Age: 28
Gender: Male
Posts: 44
Location: Newcastle, England
Quite often my thoughts are far, far ahead of my words, it's why I like to write, especially in emotional circumstance. My (sadly now ex) girlfriend understood this, and let me write down my problems so we could discuss them. My skills still failed me in the end, but I'm still young.
When I do get into a prolonged discussion, I've noticed now that I do tend to swap vowels and syllables, or occasionally just come out with completely the wrong word. It can be frustrating, given that a lot of my friends look to me as a trustworthy source of knowledge and information... Who can't talk properly
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Blog Of My Thoughts: http://aratherstrangeday.blogspot.co.uk/
Your Aspie score: 134 of 200
Your neurotypical (non-autistic) score: 65 of 200
You are very likely an Aspie
At least they take you seriously enough to feel that way.
I personally, am not taken seriously at all by most people I know, so anything I say is taken as false, even when it's blatently obvious that it's true. It's really frustrating because it seems like people are more willing to believe a lie that a normal person tells them, than facts that I do, simply because I have AS.
My conclusion is that people think I don't know what I'm talking about. It's so frustrating to be able to help someone understand something and them not believe a word of what I'm saying.
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Writer. Author.
When someone speaks too fast I have to ask them to please slow down because I can't understand what they are saying at that speed. This means to me that I can't think (grasp, comprehend, process) as fast as the fast talker can speak. This leads me to believe that the reverse would also be true: when a person is thinking faster than he or she can turn thought into speech without losing or sacrificing original content meaning of the thought they are attempting to speak.
It seems to me that a good analogy for this would be recorded sound, or a record on a record player. If you play a 78 (rpm) at 45 (rpm) you're going to get / hear a deep low slow slurred drone. If you play a 45 at 78 your going to hear Donald Duck. Another interesting comment and then I'll go away. Once I read an entire short story in "Donald Duck" and was amazed at my ability to do this. I could/can mentally hear the story as if Donald Duck were speaking it, which means I (my mind) had to rapidly change or transform the comprehended written word into a mental voice or sound, adjusting both pitch and speed. However, the strange thing to me is this: I can think in Donald Duck, but I can not speak in Donald Duck. I couldn't read aloud in Donald Duck.
So ... doesn't that mean I can think faster than I can speak?
btw, there are youtubes of people who can speak Donald Duck who give tutorials on how to do it.
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